Main menu

Post navigation

Post-hospital Stress Disorder

I miss my night nurses who sneak in under cover of the hallway lighting and administer my evening IV doses, all while I sleep away, no break in my warped hospital dreams. Last night, with no nurse to save me, I turned off my 4 a.m. wake up call and went back to bed, screwing up my antibiotic schedule for the day.

Mycin, the IV-antibiotic groundhog, saw his shadow at my post-hospital appointment this week, and I’m continuing home IVs for 7 more days. Oh, yay. Seven more days of no shower and limited sleep.

I must give a shout out to the CF Team. They’re fantastic and a bright spot of humanity. They’re people who care about others in a world full of . . . well, fill in the blank with your own opinion. It takes a great team to survive this disease.

My O2 isn’t back to normal. And I have a bad attitude, along with a craving for Jersey Mike’s meatball & cheese sub sandwiches, which I’ve eaten almost every day since coming home.

I’m back at work, and grumpy about it. If a hospital stay, daily fevers and the continuing erosion of my lung function shine a revealing light on anything, it’s the bullshit of the trivial aspects of my job. The politics, the positioning, the posturing, the game, and most importantly, the work that does and doesn’t matter. I don’t know how much more I can take of feeling like I’m not doing something valuable with my remaining time. Designing PowerPoint presentations makes me want to stand in front of a MetroRail train.

I know it’s a cliché, but some days, “one day at a time,” really does save my ass. It’s my immediate ticket to not thinking about all the bad things that can and may happen. It works.

That sucks. I know what you mean. I was in the hospital back-to-back in Oct. Had to take 2 months of Med Leave from work, and I had to withdraw from college. But like you say: One day at a time. I’ve worked my lungs up a bit. I get to go back to work in a few weeks AND hopefully one day soon I can re-enroll in Grad School. I love the one day at a time saying and repeat it a lot. It really helps. Sorry how it all is going for you, another saying I repeat : It all has to get better eventually and this will pass. Good luck, hope it all turns out good. 🙂 your fellow cf blogger, Cheriz (www.cheriz.org)